Chapter IV: Gun-Runners

Captain Image prided himself on turning out fine active West African mates. It is true that a good many officers succumbed to his treatment, but the survivors were notorious for being able to get through more work in a given time, and for giving way less to disease, than any set of mates on the Coast. As the Liverpool office will testify.

But the new Fourth he had shipped on the _M'poso_ (vice a predecessor smashed under a surf boat on the beach of the Grand Bassa) frankly puzzled him.

"The young pup actually asked me this morning if he could do the navigation for me," he told his purser over their morning refreshment.

"These brass-edged upstarts," said Mr. Balgarnie, "are brought up that way on some of the other runs now, I believe. Your boy's overloaded this cocktail with angostura again."

"Much angostura makes easy swizzling. You're quite right: that's a cocktail only fit for a passenger. Jones, this new Fourth calls himself, and that makes the third Jones I've got on the _M'poso_ this minute, and bring the number of Joneses on the Coast up to three hundred and ninety six. Rum thing is, Balgarnie me man, he isn't Welsh either."

"Well, you ought to be a judge of that," said the Purser with sly malice.

Captain Image scowled. His nationality was a sore point with him. "Look you now, me lad, go steady. I've knocked fellows down for saying what I know you've got on the edge of your tongue. So let's get back to business--I mean this Fourth Mate. I put him on to chipping paint, and watched him start. Believe you me, he'd less idea of the job than the ordinary Liverpool dock rat. I took him out of earshot of the man and gave him my views. I said 'You've got to get quit of a lot of those airs and starched collars before you're going to be any good to me, me lad,' I said. 'Very good, sir,' says he as civil as begob. 'Where did you pick up those manners?' I said. 'Are you Royal Naval Reserve?' I said. 'I am not, sir,' says he. 'In fact very much the reverse,' he says. 'But I hope, sir,' he says, 'that after I've shaken down to the ways of the ship you'll find I can carry on as well as any officer you've got.'"

"H'm," said Mr. Balgarnie. "'Carry on.'"

"Precisely," said Captain Image, signing to his Krooboy to hand the second cocktails. "Plain Navy talk."

"May have been sheer frills."

"When we get down to the Coast, I'll sweat the frills off him, the young pup. Thinks he's going to lib for top deck and run the tally desk, I expect. Well, he'll learn what it is to be down in a hold breaking out cargo with the thermometer at fifty above par."

"You promised to call at the Dutchman's factory up the Brass River this time."

"And if there's water enough for the old packet, I'll go. The Dutchman should have a hundred mahogany logs ready for me. If the fever's been good to him he may have as many as a hundred and twenty. It will be Mr. Fourth Mate's job to hook those five-ton logs on to our winch chains, and after he's stood for a couple of days up to his chin in that stinking mud off the Dutchman's beach, I'll give you further news of him--the smooth-faced young pup."

Now from the Steamboat Company's point of view the spheres of interest along the West African seaboard are clearly demarcated, and seldom interlap. London boats work the North West coast from Tangier to Mogador, and go no further south now that Agadir is a closed port. The Germans and the French compete with them to a certain extent, and as they are helped and the British are hindered by their respective Home Governments, they are likely to get more of the trade. Then comes a gap: there is no regular service to the Saharan seaboard. But occasional French steamers do the bulk of the shipping from Senegal, and from there onwards, past Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast and the Bight, down to the Oil Rivers, Liverpool steamcraft carry trade, traders, and missionaries, soldiers and administrators, with weekly regularity. British steamers under the Belgian flag serve the Congo. And there are other arrangements, also clearly defined, for Portuguese Angola, British Walfish Bay (which is the entry port for German South West Africa), and of course for Cape Town.

The main point to carry in mind, however, during the reading of this memoir is that the West African seaboard is by no means all British; the ownership is shared also by French, Spaniards, Moors, Portuguese, Liberians and Germans; so that when hereafter I speak of The Other Power, there is enough geographical vagueness to avoid international trouble. The reason for this will appear later.

The _M'poso_ was a Black-Funnel boat, and with decent luck should have come to her end some ten years ago. But no bar on the Coast could break in both of her bottoms (though all had tried), and Captain Image stuck to her, though promotion was often offered to him. A bigger boat of course meant more passengers; but the slow old _M'poso_ putting into half-forgotten creeks up the rivers, or rolling her rails under off surf-smitten beaches where no decent steamer dare risk her anchors always staggered home loaded to her marks. A mail steamer may be decorative, but there are heavy fines for loss of time, and mail-boat passengers on the West Coast expect to drink like fish at the skipper's expense, and entertainment allowances are always inadequate. Moreover, it is a solid commercial fact that the Black Funnel Co. pay a big commission to their Masters on cargo secured. And that is where Captain Image really scored. He was known to have a nose for cargo second to none on the Coast, and the grey-headed owner with the imperial who ran the Line gave him a free hand to hunt for cargo anywhere he liked along that unhealthy seaboard....

"The Old Man seems down on you," said Mr. Price the Third Mate to Mr. Jones the Fourth, with whom he shared a room above the boilers. "Well, he hates frills and he expects his mates to work nine days a week and twenty-eight hours a day, and you don't look cut out for that. I guess he spotted you were an R.N.R."

"But I'm not."

The old Third raised his dyed eyebrows. "Oh, well, if you tell me you are not, there's an end of it. Don't talk. Look you: I want a bit of sleep."

The Fourth Mate inspected himself in the glass. "If only I'd had sense enough to grow a moustache," he told himself humorously, "I should have steered to windward of a lot of trouble. As it is, that old palm oil ruffian of a skipper seems to sniff Navy Pattern somewhere. However, thank the Lord for a thick hide: I guess I shall need it. They might have the decency to give officers separate rooms on these tanks, or else provide them with efficient exhaust silencers for when they're asleep. My Christian Aunt! How that Welshman snores. Well, it's one comfort to know he will be quite unconscious of the fact of my absence, so I'll just trot off to Number Three Hold and get on with my forgeries..."

Now at Abadah, which is the chief port of entry of a certain Third Class British Colony, the Colonial Secretary, who was acting Governor for the time being, vice the proper Governor invalided home, was in a state of considerable anxiety. He tapped a cigarette paper full of quinine, rolled it up, and washed it down with a wineglass of weak whisky and water, and irritably waved away the black house boy who came to announce dinner.

"I no fit for chop."

"But I am," said Craigie, the Commandant of the Hausa Constabulary. He scratched himself because he was suffering from prickly heat, and nodded to the house boy, who took the hint and vanished. "Look here, old man. I know you're worried, and I know also that your head's ringing like a bell with that infernal quinine, but if you don't eat you'll crack up, and that's a thing that can't be allowed."

"Barring suicide, getting decently invalided home seems the only way out of my particular mess just now. And," the Acting-Governor nodded significantly, "I'm not the only man who has faced those two alternatives and made his choice."

The Commandant quite understood the reference to His Excellency the late Governor, and nodded agreement. "But," said he, "you're not that kind of jellyfish. It isn't your fault that we've another slackback at the Colonial Office at home, and you get neither backing nor encouragement, and are left to hold the dog. If the--the Other Power mops up the hinterland and ruins the Colony, you'll be held up to infamy as the rascal responsible, and if you back Great Britain and do your duty, the odds are you get recalled for spoiling the game of some trumpery politician at home. It's a sweet choice, but there's not the smallest doubt as to what you must do."

"I know that," snapped the Acting-Governor, "and of course I'm going to see the thing through. You needn't reel out any more of your platitudes, and I suppose you're hungry if I am not, so we may as well have chop. Curse this heat. The thermometer's been steadily going up for three days now, and if that threatened tornado doesn't come along soon to clear the air, I believe I shall go out in an apoplexy."

Now in that no man's country, the Abadah hinterland, there was chronic war, and so far as local history travelled backward there always had been chronic war. In theory every one deplored this, and successive Governors had reported strongly in favour of annexation, and presenting the troubled area with the Pax Britannica. Incidentally, as all the trade of the Colony came from the hinterland, commerce would be assisted, but this fact was kept in the background of late, as the Hypocritical Party was in power at home, and as they were mostly traders themselves or came of trading stock, they always assumed an unctuous pose of righteousness, and refused to countenance any annexation that was not first proposed by the missionaries of their particular denominations.

As a glaring alternative it was pointed out that the Other Power was aching to annex. The Other Power worked the Press in its usual way, and protested that it could not afford to have a bear garden on its doorstep. It clamoured aloud that its interests suffered, that the cause of humanity was being neglected, and so on. And once the Other Power seized that hinterland, of course it would clap on its usual tariffs to divert trade to its own port, and Abadah would be ruined.

"And the utmost the present Hypocrites at home can rise to," the Acting-Governor summed up, "is that I should try moral influence on these hinterland tribes. One might as well try to shift the Equator with a hymn tune. And they're cutting down the Colonial forces every half-year. As a point of fact, what is the total of the Hausa Constabulary now? My head's so full of quinine I can't remember the simplest figures."

"Two hundred and thirty-eight effectives. By the way, you remember that eminent politician who called us butcher mercenaries in the House of Commons the other day? That pretty phrase has been copied into the local rag here, and improved upon, and my native officers tell me the men are beginning to kick."

"I don't see why they shouldn't. By the way, d'you know the Abadah _Times and Echo_ has changed proprietors?"

"I didn't. I thought that snuff-and-butter-coloured barrister chap, Quablah Smith owned it."

"He's just sold out to Schmaltz."

The Commandant scratched himself thoughtfully and whistled. "Who owns, or is said to own, or at any rate who manages, that big new Dutch factory at the head of the town where they sell under cost (so I hear) and buy above the market, and live like fighting cocks on what must be a very heavy net loss per annum. I suppose Schmaltz has been sent by those blighters who are trying to bag our hinterland. By Jove, Crawford, aren't they thorough? Actually nobbling the local Press in our own twopenny capital."

"Oh, they're thorough enough," said the Acting-Governor grimly, "and plodding, and systematic. They've had the whole scheme cut and dried and docketed in their Colonial Office any time this past twenty years, and my distinguished predecessors in office have tumbled to it for ten, and have reported strongly. As a total result the Colonial Office has now woke up to the fact that they've been sending our official letters here by a round-about route for the past century, and now post them by the direct boat. Looks as if one of these new chaps they've got into the Cabinet had bought an atlas."

Now as it happened, the Other Power, which had set up a new diplomatic doctrine of doing things first and explaining them afterwards, had made a far more comprehensive network of preparations than even the men on the spot guessed at. All the world knew that Dr. Carl Josephs was one of the great modern authorities on West African lepidoptera. But no one apparently worried about where the bearded and be-spectacled Dr. Carl found the money to finance his beautifully equipped expeditions. At the end of each trip he issued a sumptuous volume, lavishly illustrated by the three-colour blocks (London: Schünemann Gebruden. £5 5s. net); but as moneyed butterfly hunters are few, one concludes that the circulation was limited, and probably did not meet the cost of publication.

It was perfectly true that the Herr Doctor had brought home several butterflies hitherto unknown to science, and if one were in a scoffing mood one might point out that any other earnest student who cares to hunt through any little-known section of West Africa can do the same. But the expense of such an expedition is heavy, and I can recommend Dr. Carl Josephs' plan of getting a government subsidy to cover it. Especially is it handy to have a subsidy that is not reported in any parliamentary return, and so is beyond lewd criticism. That is the great advantage of having one's income provided for under the secret service estimates.

The smart new Colonial Secretary of the Other Power has been adversely criticised for many of his appointments, but he made no mistake when he picked Dr. Carl Josephs as his missionary of empire in the Abadah hinterland. The man had health, and he had prudence; his genius for entomology was the most perfect of disguises; moreover he had a gift of tongues, no conscience whatever, and a talent for gaining the friendship of savages such as is only possessed by the one man in the million. He could promise and he could perform. He gave gramophones, magnetic shocking coils, and patent leather sword belts. He did a lot of very lucky doctoring in a smallpox district, and he scored with the biggest headman of the lot by the prediction of an eclipse.

Nautical almanacs are not common currency in the bush at the back of Abadah, and when the sun was shut out at the prophesied hour, the whole tribe admitted the miracle. But the headman stuck out for further bounty. He had a repeating rifle--an early pattern Winchester. He must have a thousand more. He would not sell his country for less. Dr. Josephs knew the trouble of smuggling arms of precision into Africa in the teeth of international law, and offered two thousand gaspipe flint-locks with cherry red stocks and nickelled heel-plates. Quoth the headman, "I can get those myself if I choose to make my people collect rubber. Either the Winchesters, or I sit tight."

"Then the Winchesters you shall have," said Dr. Carl Josephs. "On my head be it. And when they come you shall use them against those cursed British who have spoiled your slave trade, and want to cut down your crucifixion tree, and will not even give you a good price for your palm oil and kernels. And to show the generosity of my master, the great Emperor, who will come in to protect your country, I will give you above and beyond the rifles, cartridges in number past thinking, which you have not even asked for. Then you can drive the British into the sea, and loot Abadah."

"Yes," said the headman doubtfully. "But I couldn't stay there. Their ships would come with cannon that shoot a thousand miles." He was a travelled headman. He had served once in the stokehold of a West Coast gunboat, and remembered wistfully the range of a four point seven gun.

"When you had looted the place, and got their gin, and their concertinas, and their tinned salmon, and that skew-eyed billiard table at Government House, and--and those big French hats the Colonial Secretary's wife does such a line in, why then my dark friend you can retreat on your ancestral middens here, and--I'll guarantee you'll find them strongly held."

The headman licked his big lips. "Is there much gin now in Abadah?"

"Just oceans," said Dr. Carl Josephs.

* * * * *

Here, then, were the ingredients for a very pretty little international turmoil, and the Colonial Secretary of the Other Power rubbed his be-ringed and manicured hands and congratulated himself that Great Britain could not this time "muddle through somehow" after her usual habit by any possible means whatever. "I am sorry for the poor old Herr Bull," said the Colonial Secretary, "and my tailor in London is a man for whom I could forgive his country much. But we are the nation of the present and the future, and we intend to have our place in the sun. Back numbers must suffer. And the guns shall go out by one of their own fool ships. Then there can be no back reckonings. American guns, ferried over in an English boat, landed at a British port, and carried to a country the greedy British are trying to annex. De--licious!"

But on the seas at that particular moment was a clean-shaved, red-faced young man, who gave the well-known West African name of Jones, and bore the rank of Fourth Officer on the S.S. _M'poso_, and as no other reason for his presence has ever transpired, one can only suppose that he was sent there by that blind Providence which is so well known by a sneering Europe to look after the incompetent British Empire. Mr. Jones at that date was having a particularly evil time of it. He had filled the mind of Captain Image with suspicion, and that potentate was engaged in "sweating the frills off him." Mr. Jones, who fancied himself as an actor, had done his best to adapt himself to all the requirements of the West African junior mate, but he had glaringly failed in many things, and in his very attempts the peppery Captain Image saw cause of offence.

"What do you think is the latest?" he demanded one sweltering day of the plump Mr. Balgarnie. "I sent him ashore yesterday in a surf boat to bring off a few bags of kernels from Swizzle-stick Smith's factory at Malla Nulla, and he actually had the nerve to teach his Elmina boys to toss their paddles as they came up to the guess-warp alongside."

"Man o' war fashion."

"Precisely, the smooth-faced young pup. So after I'd given him my tongue, I put him in the other surf boat with those Sa' Leone Krooboys."

"And as they know their rights," said the Purser rather bitterly, "there'd be no use tampering with them. And as there's been a shocking bad beach to-day, and as those Christian Kroos are rotten bad boat boys, he'll have had a gay time of it landing."

Captain Image winked a watery eye. "Spilt three times, so I hear, though he didn't report it. And knowing old Swizzle-stick's beach, I should guess he'd swallow enough Atlantic and seaweed to last him a lifetime. But the pup's a sticker, I will say that for him. He had his boat all ready to go ashore again when I decided the beach was too bad, and hove up and steamed on."

"Why's he always messing about in Number Three Hold when he's supposed to be off watch?"

"Oh, that's all right, Purser me lad. He asked me one day if he was expected to tally cargo. I said yes, unless he proposed to play amusing tunes on the grand piano whilst somebody else did his work for him. 'Then, sir,' says he, 'as I shouldn't like you to find me inefficient when the time comes, would you mind my going down beforehand to see how the cargo's stowed?' Well, I wasn't civil, but I said he could go if he felt incompetent and was minded to waste his time that way. To tell the truth I didn't see how I could refuse."

"It is awkward sometimes to think of the right repartee on the spur of the moment. But I noticed you stuck up for him when that Dutchman came aboard breathing thunder and blitzen off Abadah."

Captain Image's complexion deepened to a fine plum colour. "I'm skipper aboard here, Mr. Balgarnie me lad, and though I do allow liberties with traders who ship cargo, it is best they should always remember my true position. Besides, as regards Schmaltz, although we bring him a big tonnage out from home, he's never shipped so much as a ton of cargo by the _M'poso_ for the run North."

Cargo from Liverpool interested Captain Image little. But on every ton of cargo picked up on the Coast he drew commission, and somewhat naturally West African cargo was the chiefest of his life's interests. He was believed in the Liverpool office to have the keenest nose for cargo in the trade, but even there they did not realize the wealth of diplomacy he expended over the gathering of it.

"That man Schmaltz is a fraud," Captain Image went on, "and he's neither bottom nor sides to his stomach. Last time I was round here I asked him aboard for chop. Instead of the usual two preliminary cocktails he had six. He must have necked at least three bottles of Castle Hamburg champagne for dinner, and didn't even put angostura in it. He said he could do with some port after, and cost me a couple of pints, and then I started to drink him level at whisky and soda. Well, Balgarnie me lad, you know what I am on that?"

"I do," said the stout Purser feelingly.

"Well, he was a tin wonder. I'll admit to being inclined to recite poetry myself by the time we knocked off, but he hadn't so much as stirred a hair. But as for cargo, I might as well been asking for his gold nuts."

"Bland way with him too, hasn't he?"

"Bland, d'ye style it? I should call it b---- Yes, Mr. Price?"

The old third officer, with half an inch of white showing at the roots of his dyed hair reported that his room-mate the Fourth was down with fever.

"Ungrateful young skrimshanker, just when I was beginning to make a useful mate of him. Well, Mr. Price me lad, as you know, I can be hospitable even to a junior mate. Come along to the chart house, and I'll give you a couple of pills. Let him take those in half a tumbler of whisky together with a cigarette paper full of quinine, and he'll be ready for work to-morrow. Has he been wandering at all in his talk, Mr. Price? Has he let on at all where he served before he came on the _M'poso_?"

"He's said little, except to abuse me for snoring, which is a thing I never do. But look you, when I come to think of it, he has talked of guns and again of guns."

"Navy," said the Purser.

"Look you, I thought it was his cheeky way of referring to my breathing."

"Navy," said Captain Image. "It's written all over him in plain red clean-shaved print. That'll do, Mr. Price. There are the pills, and don't let them roll out of your fist. Here, I'll just flatten them. There, that's safe. Yes, he's been Navy, Balgarnie me lad, an officer too, and he's skipped. I wonder what for? However that's his palaver. He's here now, and if he doesn't peg out, with God's help, I'll make him into an efficient West Coast Fourth Mate. Between ourselves I liked the way he stood up to Schmaltz, although you can bet your sweet life I didn't let him guess that. There was nothing of the flare up about him, no language, not so much as a hard-shut first even. He was just coolly polite. Reminded me of a play actor I saw once at the Court Theatre who was pretending to be a gentleman. If he'd blustered, I really believe Schmaltz would have hit him, and been glad of the chance. He was as mad as he could stick."

"What did happen exactly? I never heard the proper tale."

"Well, Schmaltz had got some goods consigned in the ordinary way. Hardware it was invoiced as, and I suppose altogether the lot ran up to about three tons in weight. It was hove up and dropped into the surf boats, and paddled ashore in the usual way. There was, as I say, a good handful of it, and as you remember there was a bad run of surf that day, and so they were getting it ashore pretty slowly. But no sooner does the first lot get dumped on his beach, than off comes Schmaltz in the return boat in a towering rage. He'd been upset in the surf coming off, and was wet to the skin and had broken his specs, and I don't suppose that improved his temper. Anyway he stormed up to the tally desk and swore by ten thousand devils we'd sent him off the wrong cargo, and done it on purpose."

"'And what, sir, is your private mark?' asks Mr. Navy Jones as cool as an ice cream."

[S-in-a-ring-in-triangle mark] "'S-in-a-ring-in-a-triangle,' says Schmaltz."

"'Right,' says Navy. 'The responsibility of sending off those goods is entirely mine. I see by my tally sheet I have sent ashore to your address seventeen cases marked S-in-a-ring-in-a-triangle. From memory I can tell you that six were biggish bundles, and the rest were rectangular and about the size of--ar--ammunition boxes!'"

"Navy again," said Mr. Balgarnie.

"Oh, it was Navy right through, Purser me lad. And I'll not deny that for a change it's rather amusing to hear it when you've run dry on your ordinary tap of hard language. Ammunition boxes indeed! I thought Schmaltz would have choked. But he's the business man right enough. Trade first and fun afterwards is his motto, and before Jones could stop him he was climbing down into the hold himself."

"'If you are such a dunderhead you can't look after my cargo,' says Schmaltz, 'I'll go and pick it out myself.'

"'If you don't come up out of that hold one-time,' says Mr. Fourth Mate, 'I'll have you sent in a way that'll surprise you. The stuff down there's under my charge, and I don't have it tampered with by a half-drowned Dutchman anyway.'"

"Good," said Mr. Balgarnie. "The pup's got pluck. Schmaltz is twice his weight, at a low estimate. And so he came up, sir?"

"He did not, me lad. He went on clambering unhandily down. Jones picks up a cargo sling and heaves it to that second headman, Funnel-Paint, who was at the bottom of the hold, and says he, 'When that Dutchman who is crawling down comes within your reach, make him fast to the winch chain. I want him up here. Savvy?'

"'Savvy plenty,' says Funnel-Paint smartly enough. I will say, Balgarnie me lad, the smooth-faced young pup's got the knack of command, and the hands always jump when he raps out an order. So Mister Schmaltz when he steps out on the ground floor finds himself grabbed by a dozen naked sweating, stinking Krooboys, and hitched up in a cargo sling, and hooked on to the winch chain, and jerked aloft, and bashed against the sides of the hatch as the old girl rolled. They ran him up to the sheave wriggling like an eel snarled up in a fishing line, and then they guyed the derrick outboard, and let him go by the run to where a surf boat ought to have been but wasn't. I guess the objections were mostly drowned out of him by the time he was hauled on board a boat and paddled to the beach."

"So perish all Dutchmen," said Mr. Balgarnie, with emotion. He touched no cargo commission, and could afford to let animosities spirt out which his superior officer had to keep suppressed. "I've wanted to kick that man myself most times I've seen him, and the only reason I didn't was because I thought he might be useful to you and the ship. Let's hope a shark chops him next time he tries to leave the shore."

"Amen," said Captain Image. "I've no use for any foreign devil palm oil ruffian who hasn't cargo for me when I call off his factory. Why, he's worse than a Belgian, that one."

There was a pause, and then the stout Purser coughed and said, "I'm wondering."

"What's broke now?" inquired his friend and senior officer.

"Has Jones anything to do with that cheerful drunk we've got down below in the First Class, who's also a Dutchman, and who also had objections to raise about his cargo?"

"Name of Aaronstein Gebruden from that funny little green painted factory in the Happy Dutchland Colony?"

"Aaronstein: that's him. Gebruden is Dutch for 'And Co.' His objection was a bit of a mystery to me, sir."

"Oh, he came off from New Hamburg suffering from a different kind of hot bearings. He'd cargo consigned which he said differed from the invoice, but he didn't kick. He wanted to stand Mr. Jones a dash and seemed surprised when the d----d fool wouldn't take it."

"Navy again," said the Purser.

"Obviously. But they argued it out quietly enough."

"'What's your mark?' says Jones.

[double-A-in-a-long-diamond mark] "'Double-A-in-a-long-diamond,' says Aaronstein.

"'Were the goods you got marked with something else?' asks Mr. Fourth Mate.

"'They were not. They all had the double-A-in-a-long-diamond, but----'

"'I've nothing to do with your buts,' says Jones smartly enough.

"'If your goods have got the right mark on 'em that's the end of my funeral procession. And you may take your drinks to a place where the temperature's probably lower than it is here, and where we've no reason to believe there's malarial fever. I'm not thirsty.'

"'Man,' says Gebruden in a pig's whisper you could hear on the upper bridge, 'Man, you've sent us wrong goods. I open a case: I expect to find gramophone records: I see cartridges. I open another. It should be fishing rods: it is----'

"'Oh, go and boil your head,' says Mr. Fourth Mate, 'and attend to your business, and don't come bothering me. Is the stuff saleable?'

"The Dutchman stared till his eyes stuck out of his head like a lobster's. 'Oh, it's saleable enough, Herr Jones,' says he.

"'Then in heaven's name go and peddle it to your dusky customers,' says my high-toned Fourth. 'I guess making a bargain is your mission in life.'

"'Quite so, quite so,' says Gebruden. 'I only wanted to be assured that the cargo was mine.'

"'That I can't answer for,' says Mr. Fourth Mate as chilly as you please, 'not having the pleasure of your personal acquaintance. But these cases belong to the shopkeeper whose mark is double-A-in-a-long-diamond, and if he doesn't make the most of them, he's a variegated fool.'"

"Did he say 'variegated fool'?" asked the Purser.

"Now, I come to think of it, me lad, he did not. He said 'silly fathead.'"

"There you see, sir," said Mr. Balgarnie. "Navy again."

"Yes," said Captain Image thoughtfully, "and he wouldn't share. I wish the chance had come my way."

"Have there been some good pickings then?"

"I don't know what cargo Gebruden expected. Ordinary trade stuff, I suppose. And he'd have gone grubbing along, and just keeping to windward of bankruptcy as he has done these last dozen years. The niggers don't bring trade into the Dutch colonies if they can avoid it--prices too bad, too many forms to fill up, too many officials to pay. And then in this particular bit of the Happy Fatherland there's that war still going on that they don't seem able to stamp out, although they've got enough troops on the job to conquer half Africa, you'd think. If it wasn't for bringing officials and war material, the port wouldn't be worth calling at. Isn't that so, me lad?"

"C'rect."

"And how long did we stay there this run?"

"Twenty-eight--no, twenty-seven hours."

"Well, Gebruden in that time seems to have done more solid business than he's put through in the preceding twelve years. He got his stuff ashore and up to the factory; got the cases broken open (presumably), and the goods displayed in the feteesh; found customers; did a deal and got paid in cash. And then, by whispers! he closes out the rest of his business for cash also, and comes aboard here with the family parrot and two heavy boxes that look to me uncommonly like gold dust. He doesn't wait for the Dutch boat. Nor would he let you book him through to Happy Dutchland. No, me lad, good old Liverpool's far enough for him, and my idea is that he'll be calling himself Macdonald before the year's out, and sitting behind a big cigar in his own motor car, with an office in Castle Street, and a county place in Cheshire. And Mr. Navy Jones might at least have pocketed cumshaw, to the tune of--say--a suit of clothes if he'd known anything about the ways of the Coast."

* * * * *

Look now upon a final scene on board H.M.S. _Desolation_, 2nd class cruiser. Gunnery-Lieutenant T.R.B. Lee-Wentworth, just returned from special leave, had reported himself on board with the usual formalities, and spent the balance of the afternoon in taking over duty from his substitute.

That evening he dined in state with his Captain, and they talked briskly during the meal on the absorbing topic of Service shop. But when the cloth was cleared, and they sat alone over a glass of port, the elder man suddenly laughed.

"I ran down to Monte Carlo for a couple of days," said he.

"Hope you robbed the tables, sir."

"I'm afraid it was the other way on. But there was a man in Monte who interested me. He tried to be a dressy man, and made rather a comic failure of it. He'd been Colonial Secretary of Another Power, and he'd just been sacked. Know anything about it?"

The Gunnery-Lieutenant grinned. "I'd like to hear, sir."

"Of course I can only tell what I picked up from the papers. But you know they've had a war on in their West African Colony for some considerable time now, and recently the niggers have managed to smuggle in a big consignment of modern rifles, and they've been giving the Europeans fits."

"Ah," said Gunnery-Lieutenant Lee-Wentworth. "Of course I couldn't know that. I was at sea at the time. Any news from Abadah, sir?"

"Yes, by Jove. Now they've been having a busy time. They've got an energetic fellow called Crawford as Acting-Governor, and he's taken the bit in his teeth, and waltzed up into the hinterland with an escort of half-a-dozen Hausa police, and calmly proclaimed a protectorate over the whole lot of it. Sad thing about that explorer johnny, Josephs. Crawford found him decorating the local crucifixion tree when he arrived at the cannibal capital. I hear it hinted that Mr. Acting-Governor rather took the wind out of the Government's sails, but the thing's done and they can't repudiate it. In fact the country was so pleased with Crawford's pluck, that the Government's had to give him a knighthood."

Lee-Wentworth laughed. "Some fellows do have all the luck."

"Well," said his Captain, "whilst the rest of us have been working here in our chains you've had a fine long enjoyable leave."

"Which I'm afraid won't count much for promotion, sir."

"I shouldn't be too sure of that if I were you," said the Captain dryly. "I have to report privately on my officers, you know, and even the British Admiralty sits up and takes notice if things are put strongly enough. Have another glass of port. I'm sure you've earned it after all the towelling you've gone through. Here's luck, Tommy. I wish I'd your prospects ahead of me."